Time, perhaps, stretches and shrinks according to the mood of the heart.
Why is it that fun times
are so short...
For example,
the day you stayed up late watching a drama,
saying "just one more episode..."
and ended up watching until morning.
An afternoon at your favorite cafe,
where you realized you had been zoning out for hours,
or the moment at a hotel on a trip
when you whispered, "I don't want to go home tomorrow."
Those kinds of times
vanish like carbonation.
They sparkle for a moment,
lightening the world for just an instant,
and before you know it, they're empty.
And yet,
why are boring times
so long?
Like when you check the clock at work,
feeling like you've worked for 30 minutes,
but in reality, only 7 minutes have passed.
Or the time spent waiting for a redelivery of a package.
Or a night where you can't seem to start
the task you said you'd finish today,
while only the clock keeps moving—
Time,
isn't moved by the second hand,
but perhaps stretches and shrinks according to the mood of the heart.
That's why I think life's length
isn't about "how many years you lived,"
but "how much your heart was moved."
Summer vacation when I was a child
felt as long as eternity.
Morning radio calisthenics,
somen noodles for lunch,
the evening cicadas.
A day was truly a whole day.
Because every day was truly new,
and it was a time when I could still see
the world for the "first time."
But when you become an adult,
you realize it's already Thursday,
and you find yourself saying things like, "Wait, is April already over?" without a second thought.
It's not that I want to live my days carelessly,
but "familiar days"
pass by like fast-forwarding before you know it.
And yet,
I remember only the unpleasant times in excessive detail.
A word said by someone I don't get along with,
a conversation I couldn't respond to well,
the kind of thing that suddenly comes to mind in the middle of the night,
making you go "arghhh" under your covers.
My brain,
why do you save only that in high resolution?
Even though happy memories
are like sand slipping through my fingers.
But lately, I think a little.
Maybe it's not that fun times are short,
but that they feel short
because I "don't want them to end."
A favorite song is only 3 minutes long.
And yet,
the line at a supermarket with only one register open
doesn't move as if it's been waiting for time itself.
In other words, I think time
is not length, but density.
The more your heart feels "I want to be here,"
the faster time becomes, almost cruelly.
Conversely,
the time you spend thinking "I want this to end quickly"
lingers forever.
That's something like
life itself.
People are always searching
for moments they can think, "Don't end yet."
The walk home side-by-side with someone you like,
a phone call that lasted until you realized it was morning,
or a night that wasn't special at all,
but was strangely happy.
When I look back on those,
I truly feel that was life.
Not big successes
or glittering events.
Sharing ice cream from a convenience store,
or eating a beef bowl in silence because we were too tired,
for some reason, those trivial scenes
are what remain in my heart.
I think humans
are insensitive while in the middle of happiness.
We realize it later.
"Oh, that was fun."
Like a blurry landscape
at the edge of a photo folder.
Therefore,
the fact that fun times are short
is a little lonely, but
maybe it's not all bad.
If they lasted forever,
they surely wouldn't be "special" anymore.
Even fireworks,
if they were always going off, wouldn't be moving.
Because they are fleeting,
everyone looks at the sky.
Because they end,
they are precious.
When I think of it that way,
maybe even boring times have meaning.
Because there are days that are long, heavy,
and never seem to end,
the "times of salvation" that visit occasionally
truly shine.
If you were always happy,
you wouldn't realize you were happy.
That's why life
is made to be just a little inconvenient.
But if I'm being honest—
I want fun times
to be a little longer.
The happy time when I'm dozing off in bed,
I want to drift in it forever,
without being dragged away by something like an alarm.
On the last day of a trip,
I wish checkout policies would disappear.
On a holiday spent at a favorite cafe,
instead of "Shall we go home soon?"
I wish the seasons would change before I noticed.
But,
amidst that asymmetry,
we are still living today
trying to "increase the time we like even a little bit."
Buying convenience store sweets on the way home.
Adding the clothes we wanted to our cart
just for the sake of the next day off.
Watching favorite videos
lazily in the middle of the night.
That small resistance
might actually be what living is.
Life, perhaps,
is not made only of fun times.
But,
it is not made only of boring times either.
We manage to connect today
through the nameless moments
that exist between them.
And surely,
we will remember later.
"That time wasn't so bad after all."
Perhaps by then,
I feel I will be able to love even this night,
which is currently too long,
a little bit, like a scene from an old movie.
#Essay
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